


sharply broken creatures

by unraelated



Series: Until I am Whole [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Crimson Flower Endgame, Dark Future AU, Dom/sub, Explicit Sexual Content, Hair Braiding, M/M, Muzzle Kink, Power Dynamics, as in he basically wears a muzzle the entire fic, but they all died offscreen, claude is Complicated, like... a lot of dead characters, mute Dimitri, spoilers for Claude's origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-12-16 21:45:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21043268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unraelated/pseuds/unraelated
Summary: Five years after Claude loses the war and Byleth spares him, he returns to Enbarr and assassinates all remaining major players in the game. Everything goes according to plan, except for the part where he finds Dimitri in the dungeons, still alive but incredibly broken.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big flashing light warnings here: this is a dark future fic where all of the characters have been pretty severely affected by the fallout of the unification war. Smut to come in later chapters, rating will be adjusted accordingly.

“Claude.”

He doesn’t respond. Claude doesn’t turn to look at the voice which rings out in the large hall, though he recognizes it as Hilda’s behind him. Instead, Claude takes another step closer toward the empty throne of Enbarr, his shoes squelching blood into the already-red carpeting.

Tens of thousands of people have died for this throne. In service to this throne. Trying to reach this throne. Claude has felt the sting of death himself and it reflects in a jagged silver scar that cuts him from shoulder to hip - but now he’s here.

He thought it would feel different. Instead it just feels hollow.

“_Claude_.”

He takes another step forward and looks up at the ceiling of the throne room for the first time, catching sight of paintings that were likely over a thousand years old. Illustrating the founding of Enbarr, the Empire. Symbols of crests. Paintings of dragons, so foreign-looking that Claude doesn’t know who they’re supposed to be.

Edelgard is dead outside. Teach is with her.

Over the last five years, his most elite spies reported on something that confirmed Claude’s suspicions: that through some supernatural sense, Byleth could not be surprised by anything around her. Every sneak attack, every sudden betrayal, every assassination attempt on Edelgard’s life was stopped by her, in many cases before it could even begin.

Killing them both required surgical precision and speed and necessitated killing Byleth before she could think to react, something which Claude has always thought himself good at, but which proved to be more difficult than anything else he’d done.

“_Claude!_” Hilda finally yells, reaching up to grab at his shoulder and pull him back. Claude blinks out of his reverie and turns toward her, wrestling himself back together.

“What?”

For all that she’d been trying to get his attention, when Hilda finally has it, she falters. Bad news, then.

Her gaze drops to the floor and she shakes her head, fidgeting with her hands.

“You - you really should see this.”

It’s not just what she says but the way she says it, the nervousness, the sadness. Apprehension rises in him like bile and he nods and allows Hilda to escort him out of the throne room.

_

In the five years that have passed since Edelgard spared Claude’s life at Derdriu, the Empire has taken complete control of Fódlan. It left Claude with no other option but to retreat to Almyra to lick his wounds, accept the crown that he once thought to run from, and focus inward. 

With so many of his childhood friends dead or dying and his five year campaign against the Empire ending in failure, it had been all he could do to recover, look to his own country, and try not to crack when he received word that the last bastion of resistance to Edelgard’s rule had fallen.

He wasn’t able to hear all of it, but from the Almyran spies still situated around Fódlan, he’s heard enough. Dimitri dead. Rhea dead. Seteth and Flayn missing, presumed dead. All the nobles and Kingdom loyalists - his old school friends, people he’d studied with - either dead on the battlefield, executed, or similarly missing.

Claude did not want revenge. He wanted… peace. He wanted a world where he could reach a hand across the border and have it grasped as a friend. He wanted acceptance. He wanted everyone under him and around him to have that same feeling.

But Edelgard’s rule prevented that. Edelgard’s apprehension of him kept him from that dream. And so, Claude slunk back into the shadows, utilized his unique position as the prince - now king - of Almyra to try again, relied on his bonds with the Goneril house to get his men through the border, and spent five _years_ setting all of the dominos up to undermine Edelgard’s rule, all for this day.

This day, when it all comes crashing down. This day, when assassinations and shadowy movements win out in a way that all of the Kingdom armies and chivalry could not. This day that finds Fódlan without a ruler.

Maybe, he thinks darkly to himself, it is revenge. Losing the Alliance, losing his lands, miscalculating and being ground into the dirt by the heel of Edelgard’s boot has changed him. 

Claude has never liked being wrong.

It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that he’s here. He’s done it. And once he exerts his rule over Fódlan, he can make his childish dreams a reality.

_

Claude doesn’t know where Hilda is leading him, but she rallies her battalion when they leave the throne room and so after a moment, Claude does the same. Almyran men and women follow after them both as they gingerly step around the now-cold corpses in the hallway and begin to descend down a thin staircase which seems almost hidden in the wall.

“We’ve completed a full sweep of the palace,” Hilda tells him, her voice a little stronger. Five years of secretly allying with Almyra after such a gruesome defeat in her homeland has changed her. Hilda has been lucky - narrowly escaping with her own life, but doomed to pledge fealty to the new Empire time and time again, in a series of ornate and elaborate courts that would have made the Hilda of ten years ago complain endlessly. “Most of the nobles have been killed. Varley and Aegir and Hevring are all under house arrest - we caught them off guard.”

There’s a pause there and Hilda glances back toward Claude, uncertainty in her eyes.

“If we were anything like them, we’d have them executed.”

“We’re not,” Claude tells her - but he’s not so sure.

Hilda shrugs and doesn’t press the matter. Claude knows that she has plenty of reason to desire revenge as well and he knows that she’d wanted to take it out on Edelgard herself. It wouldn’t have worked with the plan, the way that Edelgard had needed to die before Byleth could even realize that there was an attack - but Claude wishes that he could have given that to her, all the same.

“Anyway,” she continues as they keep descending down, down until they reach a door that seems… foreboding in some way, the passage darkly lit and narrow, fitting only two men shoulder to shoulder, “we found this in our final sweep.”

It’s wet with condensation when Claude moves to open the door and smells of mold and other things he doesn’t wish to identify. The room inside is lit by sputtering lanterns which do little to illuminate the prison cells on either side of the space. The cages are small, barely large enough to hold a man and only occupied by small, skittering creatures.

Claude steps inside.

In the middle of the room is a steel table, one that shines with careful cleaning and frequent use. Claude recognizes Hubert’s handiwork, among others: scalpels, wicked-looking tools and finally, a book which seems to contain a handwritten log of some kind of experiment, though whether it was for knowledge or sadistic pleasure remains to be seen.

Claude steps toward it and pieces through the book but doesn’t have time to try and decipher Hubert’s spidery scrawl. There are other pages, pages in neater writing which seem - almost more ominous, as those pages are marred with crude and hasty drawings of crests. One crest in particular repeats over and over again, different notations on each side of it, disassembling the symbol bit by bit and putting it back together with new knowledge.

The crest is jagged but beautiful and Claude recognizes the bright star in a heartbeat, but says nothing about it. Hilda stands silently behind him, waiting for him to see it and -

\- there’s movement at the end of the room, barely more than the shifting of a shadow and it comes as such a shock that Claude drops the book back on the table and takes a step back. The final cage at the end of the room is occupied, he realizes suddenly. He’d been so fascinated by the book that he hadn’t seen... 

“Hilda…” Claude starts, slow and questioning. She doesn’t respond - maybe she doesn’t know how to explain this thing that she’s found here, maybe she just needs Claude to figure it out for himself.

He takes a slow step forward.

The creature is on the floor and after another step, it’s plain to see why: it’s heavily restrained with thick straps of leather wrapped around its arms and binding them together, to its chest, tying intricately around the heavy steel of a collar. The feet are shackled at the ankle.

Dirty blond hair spills onto the floor, fans around its head, obscuring Claude’s view of anything except further leather restraints around the face, molded over the nose and mouth, buckled securely behind its head.

At his approach, the creature (the _man_, Claude tells himself, it’s a _person_) shifts only slightly, turning where it (_he_) was laying on his side and looking up at him with bright blue eyes.

\- eye. Singular. The right one has been cut away, no doubt with one of the many surgical tools lovingly placed at the table there.

Claude forgets to breathe.

Between the markings in the book and the sight of this man, the blond hair, that blue eye, he’s filled with a sick sense of dread and suddenly understands Hilda’s apprehension from earlier as the pieces slide together.

“...is that…?”

He wouldn’t have recognized him without the book. Too much about him as changed, too much about him is dirty, covered in grime and broken from presumably years of abuse and experimentation.

“I think so,” Hilda breathes out behind him.

The former king of Faerghus - Dimitri - doesn't move any further, but his eye never leaves Claude, who is still standing outside of his cell. 

Claude would have thought that there'd be relief at the prospect of being free, some sort of celebration or pleading at the sight of someone other than his jailers, but there is nothing of the sort. Dimitri barely moves, doesn't acknowledge that this situation is different from any other threat and…

He's been here for almost five years.

While Claude has prepared for a counterattack, rallied himself, gathered his forces, and plotted from the firm throne of Almyra, Dimitri has been... here.

"Get him out," Claude says in a sudden order. There's a lock on the cell door and immediately the battalions that had descended with them begin scurrying around, searching for a key. It doesn't take long to find it and the door is unlocked before him.

There’s still the locks for his restraints and - goddess - his _muzzle_.

"Find the other keys."

They search while Claude steps in. Hilda doesn't follow him. Dimitri doesn't get up. 

Closer like this, he can see the myriad of abuse that's been done to him. His hair is matted, impossible to tell how long it is in this state but likely down his back. There's a patchwork of scars that run across his shoulders, sigils that have been etched into his skin, small tattoos of dark looking symbols that were likely used for some sort of ritual. Dimitri is covered in grime and dried flecks of blood and when he looks at his face… 

His face. Though it's mostly obscured by hair and the tight leather contraption around his nose and mouth Claude can see further damage: the hollow where his eye should have been, the scratch marks around the socket.

The only visible thing intact on his face is his left eye, which watches every move he makes. If not for that, the man is so still that Claude would think him dead.

"Your highness, the keys aren't down here."

It comes from one of his soldiers. Claude doesn't break away from Dimitri, simply nods to show that he understood.

"Do you know where they are?" he asks the man before him, the first words he's spoken to Dimitri in - goddess, ten years. He tries to keep his tone measured, gentle. "The keys for your restraints. I'm getting them off of you."

It's not like Dimitri could say anything, even if he did know but Claude had hoped… Maybe he could lead him to them? Maybe he could give some kind of clue… But Dimitri says nothing, doesn't even move to acknowledge that he's understood Claude at all.

This is cause for improvisation. Claude bites at his lower lip and reaches to his belt for his dagger. He'll be able to work through one of the leather straps restraining his arms, he thinks, and the rest of it will likely come free, but the muzzle is too close to his face to be able to comfortably remove with a blade. 

At the sound of metal being pulled from its sheath, Dimitri startles, his eye fixating on the wicked looking blade in Claude's hand. He jerks himself backward on the floor as best he can, which is… not well, given his degree of restraint.

Claude drops the knife immediately, cursing at himself for his lack of consideration while it clatters to the floor. Dimitri stares at it, confused for a moment, but continues pressing himself back away from Claude until his shoulders hit the damp wall of the prison cell.

"I didn’t intend to hurt you," Claude promises, but the tension doesn't bleed out of Dimitri's shoulders the way he wants it to. He tries again. "I'm trying to get this - these - off of you. I can't find the key."

Dimitri just stares at him, his eye going dull again and Claude frowns before gingerly picking his dagger up again and tucking it into his belt. 

There's no way he's getting close enough with a dagger to cut away Dimitri's restraints. They'll have to find the keys.

Claude slowly moves to stand and looks back toward his men.

"Search Hubert von Vestra's quarters first. Then Edelgard's. We're looking for at least two keys, um…" he leans in, brows furrowed as he tries to inspect the locks in the low light. "Silver. Most likely on the same keyring."

Hilda says nothing and Claude knows that she's been watching him this whole time, silent as she observes the thing that used to be Dimitri.

"In the meantime, move him to a room upstairs," Claude says, stepping back to the entrance of the cage, "give him a bed and guard the door."

Dimitri slips back as the soldiers approach, kicking out with his feet and shoulders. Claude urges them on, knowing that they really can't just _leave_ him here, and eventually Dimitri is dragged out of the cage, his feet refusing to step on the floor. The soldiers handle him as delicately as they can, but there's only so much to be done when moving someone like this against their will.

Claude watches quietly as they move him up the staircase and out of sight.

When Dimitri is gone, Claude lets out a long sigh and moves for the table once more to tuck the book under his elbow for further study. 

"I can't believe it…" Hilda murmurs, lost in thought as she looks over the wicked looking tools, "all this time, he was here."

Claude doesn't respond. There's too much to be done today, and while Dimitri is a surprise, there's far more pressing matters to be taken care of.

Still, he can't quite pull his mind away from this yet. Now that he's recovered from his initial shock, he's already thinking about what to do about this. With Dimitri here and alive, Claude has another rival to the throne of Fódlan. The Dimitri he knew - the one from his childhood - would have had similar ideals, would have been able to take up the crown and then assist Claude with dismantling their borders. 

This man… this man, he's not so sure of. Claude intended on dethroning Edelgard and maybe instilling a puppet leader, someone who he knew would bend to his whims - or reluctantly taking it for himself. Claude has never been after power for powers' sake, but unification has its merits. Edelgard has taught him that. 

He wonders, as he moves back upstairs, if Dimitri is capable of ruling. If he isn't then… it would be convenient, in a way. With all of Dimitri's friends dead or missing, Claude could give him the throne and have Hilda or one of his own generals stand by him to support him and write the kind of policy Claude wants. 

Then again, if he proves to be too volatile, it will be easier to kill him and revert to an original plan. Either way… 

Claude pauses on the steps, glancing back toward the remaining soldiers, toward Hilda.

"No one may speak of this," he orders, his gaze quick and calculating, "Dimitri Blaiddyd died five years ago. Until we know what kind of man this is, resurrecting him would cause more harm than good."

Some of them look uneasy, but they nod anyway. Claude commits their faces to memory and continues, back up the staircase, back to the world that he'd cracked open and taken for himself.  
_

Claude used to be a sympathetic man.

His ideals haven’t changed. He still wants the world to be a better place, he still wants to take down the walls between nations, to see others reach out with open palms instead of fists, but he can no longer stand by his own failed methods. Edelgard defeated him five years ago, Byleth had cut an almost-lethal scar into his chest, and Claude had learned that ideals and leniency will get you nowhere in this world.

Which is why, after a few days of attempted adjustment, Dimitri is back in his cell.

Claude has pulled up a chair and watches him now, Hubert’s book open over his lap and he thumbs through it, his mouth drawn into a tight line.

The past few days have been a whirlwind of change. Claude has, in one swift strike, dismantled all of the nobles in Edelgard’s power and killed those who opposed his new reign. Those who were not dead were held hostage for their family and land’s compliance. Those still free had willingly bent the knee.

Luckily for him, he supposes, Edelgard and Hubert haven’t been idle. The last five years seems to be, from his estimates, a long and structured attempt at ripping out the roots beneath Fódlan - whatever darkened cult had been there was there no longer, and in doing so, Edelgard had done most of the hard work for him.

As thanks, he put both her and Byleth’s corpses on display to shatter any rumors of them having survived.

And now, Dimitri. In his cell. Restrained. Muzzled like a beast.

Claude’s eyes narrow as they flick up toward him, thumbing through a page of the book.

“‘Day thirty-two’,” he reads aloud, “‘the subject’s immense strength is granted to him by his crest. He is a threat as long as it is accessible to him. While we don’t want to remove it entirely, I wonder if it can be blocked. I believe -’ then there’s a lot of vague theory and magical babble here. You don’t care about that, do you?”

He smiles briefly, looking toward Dimitri, who says nothing. He wouldn’t be able to say anything at all in the first place - the muzzle is back on him, rendering him incapable of much more than grunts or groans.

Claude watches him, contemplative. When his men had finally found the proper keys and set Dimitri free, the former king of Faerghus had lunged against them, snarling and lashing out like an animal. Claude wasn’t there for it, but he saw the aftermath: blood splattered against the floor, one of his best men wailing and clutching onto the bloody stump of his finger, bitten off and on the ground, Dimitri flailing wildly in some attempts at freedom, not understanding - or not caring - that Claude was already offering it to him.

He could have just killed him there. It would have been a mercy. But in the past few days, Claude has been formulating a plan, and for that plan, Dimitri is necessary.

“No.... the part you care about is a little further down,” Claude murmurs offhandedly, flipping through the pages while Dimitri watches him warily. “The part where Hubert von Vestra removed your eye.”

Dimitri’s remaining eye flashes upward through the matted curtain of his hair and Claude tries not to let his smile grow victorious with the thought of finally having his attention.

“The book says that he thought it might be useful in a dark ritual, something about the Blaiddyd Elite - but between you and me, I think he did it to make you suffer.”

Dimitri says nothing. Claude tsks and turns another page.

“He wasn’t a very kind jailer, was he? I can only imagine. But he’s dead now. I killed him. And now you have a choice to make - I’m giving you a choice, which is quite a bit more than they did.”

With that, Claude stands up, returning the book to its table. In retrospect, he was foolish to think that Dimitri would be alright, that if they removed his bonds and let him loose then he’d be - what, thankful? Full of gratitude? That he’d be a sane man after five years of imprisonment and torture, that he’d be easily rehabilitated despite losing everything?

No, Dimitri needs something else. Not cruelty, not the kind of hideousness that Hubert had forced on him, but guidance. A firm hand.

In many nations, they have war prizes, men and women who are brought back from victorious battles to serve, to be trained and eventually, to fight for their freedom and acceptance into their culture. While Dimitri could never be a servant, Claude thinks that he could be… tamed.

And so, he moves to unlock the cell door again, eyeing Dimitri from his position of being unshackled, unchained, and with a weapon at his belt hand in case the other man tries anything.

“Your choice is this, Dimitri: serve me as the other nobles of Fódlan are serving me. I did not kill your friends, your family. I wanted nothing to do with Edelgard’s war - like you, I was defeated by her, but I came back to free this land from her clutches. I think you’ll see that I’m a good friend and a capable ally. Or…”

He sighs, entering the cage. Dimitri is sitting on the floor and doesn’t seem to react to Claude’s movements, barely even looks at him, but Claude can tell that he’s listening. Claude speaks slowly for him, ensures that Dimitri can catch every word.

“...I don’t want to be the kind of man who says ‘join me or die’, but there really is no other option for you. I suppose I could leave you in these dungeons forever, but I imagine you’d rather me kill you. I’d be making the same mistake that Edelgard made with me if I let you go - you, with your claim to the throne and your unpredictable…. “ Claude trails off, reaching for Dimitri’s head. Dimitri doesn’t move to fight him off and his fingers slide through the greasy hair, pushes it back from his face to see the full extent of the damage done to him, to look at the glassy way his single eye watches him, follows every motion he makes. “...wildness.”

He’s beautiful in his ferocity. It’s not the first time that Claude has thought that, but it’s the first time that he’s had him so close like this, in his clutches. Dimitri makes a soft sound through the leather of the muzzle and Claude hums, pushing more of his hair back, looking down at him, thinking.

“I intend to use you,” he admits, freely, “but I won’t harm you. I’ll feed you, clean you, give you whatever you want to keep you happy. I just need - mm, the dead king of Faerghus, secretly alive and rescued by his childhood friend and king of Almyra… what a story that makes. What a nice thing for the people of Fódlan to hear about, to ease their troubles and prevent an uprising. What a pleasant way to start the friendship between our nations - well,” he corrects, smiling, petting idly at Dimitri’s hair, “my nations.”

Dimitri can’t seem to stop himself from leaning into the touch, as if he hadn’t heard Claude at all. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’s too far gone to be talked to at all, and this _is_ quite a bit of information that Claude is throwing at him. He’ll need some time to think it over, Claude is sure, but in the end, there is no decision, as much as Claude would have wished to give him one, or to set him free. The cruel reality is that Dimitri is too much of a liability to leave.

As long as nobody knows that he’s alive - well, nobody except for Hilda and a select few soldiers - then Claude can kill him without repercussion. If he agrees to Claude’s plan and _then_ makes issue, then there might be another problem but… there’s ways around that too.

Especially with the way Dimitri is closing his eye and sagging against Claude at just this, the slightest possible touch.

“I’d like to give you some freedom,” Claude tells him, his voice softer. Dimitri doesn’t look up at him, and he sighs. “To make you more comfortable. I’ll have my men come down to try and give you a room again. See if we can do something about your clothes, your hair.”

His hand slips down, fingers hooking into the edge of the muzzle and he frowns, using it to gently tug Dimitri’s head up, to make him look at him.

“This will have to stay on, I’m afraid. I can’t have you maiming any of my other soldiers. Do you understand?”

Nothing.

“Nod if you understand.”

Nothing.

“_Dimitri_.”

Dimitri nods finally, his eye refocusing back up toward Claude. Claude imagines his mouth, just inches below his fingers. He imagines the pinkness of his lips, the softness of his tongue, and blinks away the sudden and fierce desire that wells up in him.

It’s just because Dimitri is kneeling for him. It’s just the power that he’s been given, with Dimitri so heavily restrained, Dimitri looking up at him like he’s the first person to offer kindness in years, Dimitri pressing into his touch like a starved and wild animal.

Goddess, this is going to be difficult.

Claude finally breaks himself way, pulling out of Dimitri’s gravitational pull and moves back toward the door of the cell. He's given Dimitri his ultimatum now - all that’s left is waiting to see what he’ll do.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude checks on how Dimitri is settling in and finds a few surprises.

With time brings stability.

Claude has discovered long ago that people yearn for routine and monotony. As individuals, they might find themselves rising against their conquerors, refusing the status quo, rebelling… but as a crowd, people desire stability, schedules, unchanging and predictable. And so, with a nation at his feet, that's exactly what Claude gives them.

Edelgard was not inherently wrong - he's always thought that. He has, on some level, admired her for what she had the strength to do and how grand her visions were. When it came to broad, sweeping strokes, grand gestures, an iron heart, she was the strongest of them all. 

Claude has never been like that, but Claude thinks that he understands people in a way she never will. He knows what her war brought them and he knows how they feel about it. He knows how to keep the good things she's done whole soothing the sting of the bad. It’s off to a good start at the very least, and he’s pleased with the progress he’s been making.

Still, he can't stay in Enbarr forever. While part of Claude is fully intending on dictating Fódlan's movements in broad strokes, he never quite intended on unifying it with Almyra. Too much work, not enough payoff, too much risk of a civil war and more spilled blood. 

So, Fódlan needs a ruler.

Which brings him to Dimitri's room. 

It would be nice, he thinks, if he could convince the land to accept Dimitri. If he could get Dimitri to do it. Nicer still if he could make it seem like it was Dimitri's own idea. If Dimitri's gratitude toward him for saving him could be repurposed into a relationship that allowed Claude to manipulate him from across the border… well, that would be ideal. 

His hopes sink low into his stomach when he rounds the corridor and finds Dimitri's quarters with twice the amount of guards than he'd stationed last time he'd been here. 

"What happened?" he asks as soon as he's close enough. The room is in a long-abandoned wing of the palace, out of the way so that no one could accidentally stumble on it. Only Claude's most trusted lieutenants have access or even know that there's anything here to begin with. 

This tenuous deal with Dimitri could, after all, still go poorly and result on Claude needing to kill him. Better to be sure before announcing that he's alive.

The guards shifts uneasily, glancing at his ally before responding.

"On your orders sir, we've attempted to reduce the restraints. It had been going well but. yesterday when we took the faceguard off during the mealtime he - ah."

Claude frowns.

"He what?"

The other guard pipes up, stepping closer and speaking on a more hushed tone.

"He bit off Kylar's ear, sir."

A pause. Claude repeats himself, not a question this time. 

"He _what._"

"I - I was there. I don't know what caused it. One moment he was calm and the next… he went berserk. Lunged at the closest guard. Took four of us to force him back down and get the restraints back on."

Claude breathes out a sigh, rubbing at his eyes. "Are they still on?" 

The guard nods in affirmation and Claude works this new piece of information against his plans. It doesn't fit. He can't make Dimitri king if Dimitri is this unstable - he can't do anything with him like this. 

He thought that Dimitri would need some time to adjust but he doesn't have forever. As flippantly as he's considered killing him, Claude genuinely would rather not, but none of the alternatives sit better with him.

If the people of Fódlan - particularly those of Faerghus - knew Dimitri lived while Claude took over, then there would be an uprising. One that he could likely quell, but when weighing the potential bloodshed of that with killing a single man, the choice is obvious.

He could keep Dimitri in chains. As a bargaining pawn, he could prove useful if Claude were ever backed into a corner. But five years of imprisonment has clearly taken its toll on Dimitri, to the point where Claude thinks that murder would be kinder than any cage he could put him in, and he’s not so cold as to continue to torture the man.

He could take Dimitri back with him to Almyra. He would need to craft some kind of new identity for him, prevent him from being recognized somehow, a task that wouldn't be impossible, considering that no one has seen him in five years and he's been significantly disfigured since then. Claude could cut his hair short, dye it - it could work. 

Of all the possible options, this seems the best, except for the fact that it puts Claude at risk and doesn't benefit him in any way. Why would he gamble on Dimitri not snapping and maiming him or someone near him? What would Dimitri even _do_ in Almyra? There's no reason to do so except out of love for him and Claude knows better now than to trust his sentimentality. 

That's why he lost the war. That's why he bears a scar from where he was almost bisected by the Creator sword.

So in the end, it's this: Dimitri pulls himself together or he dies. Maybe he'll die anyway, but his only chance at survival now rests in him becoming something resembling a human again.

Claude knows this, he closes his eyes and reminds himself of this, and opens the door to step inside Dimitri's room.

Dimitri's eye follows him as he moves inside and closes the door behind him. It's been a few days since Claude could last check up on him - he has a great many other duties that take up his time - but he'd left his men with orders to try and ease off the restraints and help him put himself together again.

Like this it's plain to see that they _tried_. Dimitri's hair is washed and it shines a bright gold, the matted ends brushed out where they could be reasoned with and cut off where they could not. It makes the locks vary in length from close to his chin to almost halfway down his back, but even the awkward and uneven length of it doesn't detract from the overall appeal. 

He's wearing better clothes as well, the soft golds and browns of the Alliance and it looks… good on him, makes him look healthier, more human. 

All of it is, of course, overshadowed by the chains that extend from the wall to his ankles, that lock his two wrists close enough together that he wouldn't be able to fight cleanly if he tried. It's a sight better than the leather contraption that bound his arms to his torso… but still not as much as Claude had hoped. 

And then there's the worst of it, the ugly black muzzle that covers the majority of his face, smooth leather that follows the curve of his jaw to the back of his head where it locks. The top of it ends just under his eye, curving elegantly up and over the cartilage of his nose with two small holes generously cut in where his nostrils would be, allowing him to breathe.

There's no talking to him while he has to wear that thing. If Claude takes it off, he could lose a finger to Dimitri’s teeth.

He sighs.

“I was hoping you would have thought about my offer,” is what he finally says, stopping just shy of Dimitri’s reach. The chains that they’d looped around his ankles give Dimitri a fair run of the room, allowing him to sit at his desk or get in bed or even move close to the large window, but he can’t quite reach the door and he can’t touch his hands against the glass of the windowpane.

Claude is trying to give him more freedoms, trying to ease him back from being a prisoner to being a person, but judging by the blood spatter on the floor and the way Dimitri watches him move like a predator, he doesn’t know if it’s working.

He sighs, watches Dimitri for a moment, thinks of the blade he has stashed up his sleeve and the other in his boot - hidden, so Dimitri couldn’t simply rip them off of him, but easily accessible if he needs to stab him - and steps further into the room.

Dimitri doesn’t move for him from where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Claude glances up toward the books that they’ve supplied him and finds that they’re untouched. The soft graphite writing stick and the paper is still neatly bundled where Claude had left it, the drapes over the window haven’t been moved to see the land outside.

What does he _do_ all day?

“If you keep maiming my guards, I’m going to have to take that as you rejecting my terms.”

It’s a warning. Dimitri looks up at him through his hair, though with his chin tilted downward like this he has the self-awareness to at least look apologetic. Or like prey. Claude sighs and moves closer.

He doesn’t know why he does it. He doesn’t know what it is about Dimitri that draws him closer, but something about that wounded-animal look of his, something about the man that seems so lost and so uneasy unearths something deep within Claude that wants to heal him. To save him, somehow. To be gentle with him, despite his better nature.

To lead him with his hand on a leash.

Claude swallows that last bit down and closes the distance between the two of them, reaching out to touch his hand to Dimitri’s hair again. It’s softer this time, silky with the washing that he’d managed to get, and it manipulates easily under his fingers.

“Here,” he says softly, moved to kindness by Dimitri’s stillness, his obedience, “let me get this out of your face.”

If Dimitri is so still for him now, why wouldn’t he behave for the guards? For the most part it seems like this reintegration has been going well, but then he - Claude doesn’t know if Dimitri is snapping due to some mental issue or some association with something the guards are doing, or if he’s craftier than he seems and is biding his time and playing at being tame until he can lash out and cause more damage.

He wants to find out. If he can unravel that, maybe there’s a chance to save him.

Dimitri hums a soft approval which Claude takes as permission, but stiffens when Claude moves his fingers to brush back the rest of his hair from his face. Like this, his ruined eye is unhidden and grotesque, with thin scars along his brow and cheek where Claude can imagine that he struggled as they cut it out of him. And cut it out they did - there is an emptiness where there should be a person, a part of his _face_, carved deep into his skull and forcibly removed, the dark shadow of his eye socket contrasting painfully with the quick electric blue of his left eye.

Claude doesn’t let his gaze linger out of politeness and the lack of staring seems to put Dimitri somewhat more at ease as Claude gathers his hair behind his shoulders.

“I can have my men bring you… something to cover that with, if you like.” Claude offers it quietly, glancing over the injury again. It’s long since healed, kept somehow from infection, likely due to Hubert’s interest in keeping him alive. But still, he wonders if it’s uncomfortable. “Not that you need to. I think it’s a testament to how strong you are, being able to survive this.”

Dimitri’s brows knit together and he lets out a scoff through his nose but doesn’t move away. Claude busies his fingers with catching the stray uneven parts of Dimitri’s hair to gather it a little more efficiently - something that’s made a little difficult by Dimitri nodding his head, taking up Claude on his offer.

A small part of Claude surges at that. It seems almost insignificant but it’s the first time Dimitri has really answered him or anyone else on anything and the first time he’s expressed a preference for anything other than just laying there and watching people around him. He finds himself smiling as he moves back to situate himself on the bed behind Dimitri, though he knows that this sort of elation is a definite overreaction.

“I’ll get you something, then - as soon as I can.”

He reaches forward, collecting the hair that has fallen to the side of Dimitri’s face again and gently works his fingers through it, combing it out as best he can without any tools or equipment. When Claude speaks again, his voice is light, conversational.

“I might ask you to take it off when it’s just the two of us, though. I like being reminded of your bravery. I like seeing all of you.”

It's not… necessarily untrue, but that's not why he says it either. The more he can get Dimitri to bare himself to him, to open up to him, Claude thinks, the more he'll trust him. Follow him. Let himself be lead.

Dimitri doesn't make a sound at that and Claude shrugs, beginning the process of braiding his hair.

His fingers work nimbly, easily gathering long swathes of hair and tucking them one against another, losing himself in the task of it. 

He thinks, fleeting, what it might be like if he went with his dismissed forged identity plan. If he were to dye Dimitri's hair black with ink, or auburn with henna… he thinks about how it might look, how it might feel different against his hands. 

He thinks about changing some part of Dimitri, having a physical piece of him that's _his_ to alter the way he wants. About darkening his beautiful golden hair, corrupting him, making him into something else, a new whole being, just for Claude. His mouth goes dry and he hates himself for thinking so selfishly on it when Dimitri has had things taken from him for years now. 

But the thought stays. He imagines Dimitri with black hair, ravenlike, and it makes his fingers tremble and he has to redo a section of the braid because of it. 

Still, it's done shortly enough and Claude whisks up a scrap of fabric to tie the end of it with and smiles, running his fingers down the elegant knotwork of the braid and flipping it over Dimitri’s shoulder for him to inspect. It reaches partway down his chest - if it were flat down his back, it would be past his shoulderblades. 

“There. Looks nice.”

Dimitri doesn’t look at it or really acknowledge its existence, but it _does_ look nice. Claude isn’t sure if the long hair really suits him, but until they can get a pair of scissors near his head without worrying about him taking them and stabbing someone with them, this is about as good as they can do.

With that out of the way, Claude lets his fingers linger at the back of Dimitri’s head, the hard leather of the muzzle and the way it buckles securely behind his skull, locked up tight with a key that he knows now is held by the guard responsible for feeding time.

All of this has been, more or less, a way to get closer to him. Dimitri seems calm with Claude around and Claude knows that the more he encourages this contact, the more he puts his hands on him, pushes him, manipulates his hair and moves his face to follow him, the more it will seem natural, the more Dimitri will come clinging back to humanity with a penchant for taking Claude’s direction.

Part of him hates himself for it. Part of him thinks that it’s necessary. Part of him just wants to touch him.

Claude traces a finger along the raised edge of the lock thoughtfully, watching Dimitri for any sort of reaction. There is none. He exhales, his breath tickling at the back of Dimitri’s neck.

“It must be so awful, having this forced on you,” he finally says, sympathy bleeding into his tone and that - that isn’t calculated. He _shouldn’t_ say that, he thinks, as it could very well remind Dimitri that Claude is the one keeping it on him.

But Dimitri says nothing. Eventually, he turns his head to the left, until he can look at Claude over his shoulder with one piercing blue eye, the only part of his face unmarred, the only part of him that Claude can see.

He watches him. Meets Claude’s gaze and slowly, with purpose, shakes his head.

Claude blinks and his hand falls away.

“What do you mean, no?” It’s unfair to ask him a question beyond simple yes or no. Claude has told himself that, as he’d prepared himself for the visit today, practiced controlling himself out of asking complicated questions, but this... this surprises him enough to forget it.

Dimitri shrugs in response and moves back to look at his lap and Claude feels - he feels -

He doesn’t know what he feels. Could he have misunderstood? He tries again, moving closer, until his knee brushes against the small of Dimitri’s back.

“...you don’t hate it?”

Again, Dimitri shakes his head. He reaches up a hand - both hands, as they’re chained together - to touch at his braid, finally moving to explore what Claude has done for him, his fingers tripping along the curves and loose hair from the uneven length. 

Claude feels uneasy. No - he feels warm with the realization, caught off guard by the admission, and it’s enough that it has him mentally falling back, trying to recalibrate his strategy and what he’d assumed about Dimitri before walking into this room.

He doesn’t like the way that the conversation has gotten away from him. He doesn’t like the way that Dimitri has caught him by surprise. He’s the one in power here, he needs to wrest it back, but the combination of being so close to him, touching his hair, seeing him healthier, cleaner, more sane and… well, whatever the hell _this_ is sends him sprawling for a moment.

Focus. Reassert.

Claude’s fingers move quickly back to the lock and he wraps his hand around it, getting a firm grip and gently tugging backward.

It makes Dimitri crane his head back, arching his spine and the swift intake of breath through the small holes of the muzzle are unmistakable. His hands fall back into his lap with a quiet clinking of the chains. Claude tries a different tactic, careful, soft.

“Is that why you attacked my men? You didn’t want us to take it off?”

No response. He didn’t really expect one. Claude feels sick with power, feels more powerful than he had at his coronation, more powerful than he had when Edelgard had died in front of him. He can’t let it get away from him. He can’t lose himself to this feeling, not when he has a goal, not when he has Dimitri’s beautiful head leaning back against his hand.

“I told you in the dungeon,” he murmurs, soft, but Dimitri is close enough now that he can hear it, “that I’d give you whatever you wanted if you played along. Even if what you want is this.”

Like this, Dimitri almost has to lean back against him. Claude looks down over his shoulder and sees the smooth line of his chest and stomach, the jutting of his angular collarbones, the awkward way his knees are bent to try and keep him balanced.

Dimitri holds himself so still, like a single movement will be the end of him. Maybe it will be. Claude looks down at him and he remembers, fuck, ten years ago, touching himself to the thought of the sweet, golden prince taking him in his hand and things have changed, everything has gone wrong, but he can’t swallow the sudden shock of lust that curls through him at the thought of having Dimitri utterly in his power. 

Is that why he’d done this? Is that why he’d - Claude hadn’t wanted to name it before, had told himself that he was simply appreciating the aesthetics of him, but why else would he not just kill Dimitri on sight? Why else would he… oh sure, there was sentiment, the kind that Claude thought that he’d crushed out of himself by now, but seeing Dimitri like this, utterly pliant and in his power, a spoil of war that’s sweeter than any land, any amount of wealth, any goddamn _country_ \- it makes him think that he’s lost the game he’d been playing and Dimitri hasn’t even realized that he’s a _participant_ yet.

Still, Claude finds it in his mind to continue, lets out a long sigh that brushes air across Dimitri’s cheek.

“I’ll never judge you,” he promises, “I’ll never hold it against you. I’ll never hurt you.”

He tightens his grip, pulls back further and Dimitri loses his balance finally, falls back into Claude’s chest. And Claude is - he’s too far back for Dimitri to be pillowed against him, Dimitri’s head winds up knocking against his sternum and he slips down lower, chains rattling as he lifts his hands as if to steady his fall, but his arms still halfway up.

Claude looks down at him, upside down, a king in chains, muzzled, his hair already starting to come loose from the braid, staring up at him with one startlingly blue eye, more expressive than most other people manage with an entire face at their disposal.

“Don’t hurt any more of my men.”

Dimitri swallows - Claude’s eyes flick up and he follows the line of his throat as it moves. Slowly, the man below him nods.

“I want to keep you alive. Maybe you don’t care if you live or die, but I do. I don’t want a reason to kill you, Dimitri. I want you to…” Claude’s gaze flicks down to the sculpted leather again and he reaches down, running his finger along the hard line of it. Dimitri’s eye follows the movement of his hand and Claude feels himself tightening the noose around his throat.

“...I want you to listen to me when I ask you to do things.”

Dimitri’s attention is like a drug, one that Claude never anticipated and enjoys more than he’s willing to admit, even to himself. And so, when Dimitri nods again, understanding - agreeing? - Claude feels as if he’s just won another war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic has absolutely gotten away from me and now im just using it as an excuse to write all of the super self indulgent ship dynamics i want SORRY


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claude comes to some unfortunate realizations about what to do with Dimitri.

Dimitri consumes his waking moments.

Claude doesn’t intend to abuse his newfound power over him - well, no more than he had been planning for already. But getting Dimitri under his control is a powerful tool in more ways than one and he’s not there yet, but if Claude nudges a little, encourages him in the right way to keep him treading back on a path to humanity while remaining under Claude’s thumb… isn’t that what he’s been hoping for this whole time?

The idea of stability seems even more like an achievable goal now, and Claude walks with a lighter step at the thought that his convoluted plan may actually come together in a way that doesn’t cause any further bloodshed.

Of course, it isn’t the only reason he feels so good, but it’s the main one he tries to think about. The rest of it, the memory of Dimitri’s hair in his hands, Dimitri’s watchful eye on him, Dimitri leaning back with his head in his lap, looking up at Claude like he hung the stars and agreeing - _agreeing_ \- to his plans… well, all of that is something else, something that he pushes from his mind when he looks over the maps in the war room, when he sizes up the throne of Enbarr, but it’s something that he’s never able to truly forget.

He thinks of it late at night. He thinks of the way that Dimitri shook his head when Claude asked about the muzzle, his eye bright and lucid and willing Claude to understand.

He thinks about - what Dimitri might do, if Claude steered him around like that again. He thinks about Dimitri on his knees for him and _wanting_ to be there, looking up toward Claude with the same heat in his gaze that he’d had when his head was in Claude’s lap. He thinks about Dimitri determined, unable to use his mouth but reaching up with his hands to help him all the same.

Shamefully, Claude thinks about sitting on the throne that he plans to give to him and letting Dimitri’s head rest in his lap, guiding him around with fingers crooked in his muzzle toward his crotch and he - it takes almost no time at all for Claude to find his completion when that particular thought comes to him, and he grits his teeth as he makes a mess over his hands, his stomach, and stumbles awkwardly off to clean himself up.

It’s nothing. It’s - it’s stress relief, because goddess only knows that taking over a country as he had done has left Claude with no small amounts of stress and no good way to blow off steam.

It’s… acknowledging maybe, that he’s harbored feelings for Dimitri in the past, that having Dimitri meek and pliant under his fingers is arousing in ways that he doesn’t care to delve too deeply into. Claude is a mastermind, he’s just taken over an entire country in the most bloodless way possible, but he has needs, as much as he likes to pretend he doesn’t.

_

Dimitri is never far from his mind, but that doesn’t mean that Claude has the time he wants to spend with him and cultivate his loyalty further. There are other considerations that come with being a conqueror, and after the fourth meeting that day, Claude finds himself sagging against the stone of the hallway. The nobles and Almyran generals have left, offering him a rare opportunity to catch his breath, close his eyes, and try to keep going.

He can’t stop. He’s come too far now, and this - this might be too big for any one person, but it’s in service to something greater than himself and so he will willingly sacrifice his sleep, his personal life, his everything for it.

Luckily, he’s not alone. He thought he would be.

“Between you and me,” Hilda says, her bright gaze on him as Claude slowly opens his eyes and focuses on her, “I think that went well. But then, we’ve always had a pretty good relationship with the nobility of the Alliance-Imperial border.”

Claude murmurs something unintelligible, pulling himself away from the wall.

“Chances that Faerghus will attack in an attempt at emancipation?” He asks. He knows the answer, but running it by her is always a better option than thinking it to himself and potentially missing something.

Hilda frowns.

“With the majority of this generation of nobility dead and their armies crushed by Edelgard five years ago? They couldn’t if they wanted to. The last time Faerghus split from the Empire, they had the blessing of the church. Edelgard made sure that wouldn’t happen again.”

It’s the truth, even if it’s a painful one. In crushing all those around her and dissembling the church of Seiros, Edelgard had ensured that no one could rise to another civil war again.

She should have looked outward. She should have thought about the nations around her. But regardless of her mistakes and her merits, her complete destruction of all power in the nation save for her own means that when she died, no one could rise up to stop someone else from coming in to rule.

“Then again,” Hilda continues, skeptical, “if they knew who we had here…”

Claude’s eyes flash up to meet hers, his gaze sharp. “They won’t find out. Not until we’re ready.”

“I guess so. Still, it’s just a bunch of sheep herder nobles left. I’d be more worried about an invasion from Sreng, with the Gautiers out of the picture.”

He chokes out a laugh, though it isn’t all that funny.

“Don’t say that. I don’t want anyone to hear you and get any ideas.”

Hilda smiles weakly and Claude turns to move back into the meeting room, nodding toward Hilda in a motion to follow him. She tilts her head quizzically but does so and closes the door behind them. There’s no one else in the room now, no one who could possibly overhear them and report back to anyone dangerous.

In the secret of the lonely room, both Hilda and Claude drop their respective acts. Hilda closes her eyes and leans her hip against the table and Claude can see the unmistakable shadows under them and she looks - well, it’s unkind to ask a woman her age, but she looks more like it than she usually does.

Claude doesn’t pity her. She wanted this just as badly as he did, albeit for different reasons.

“I want to know your thoughts on Dimitri,” he says pointedly, and Hilda doesn’t seem surprised by the question. 

She hasn’t visited him like Claude has, doesn’t know as much about his progress or what kind of animal he’s turned into over the past five years, but Claude values her judgement all the same, particularly as someone who _has_ lived in Fódlan for the last five years, someone who has, reluctantly, gone to all the courts and galas and knows more about the land here than even Claude himself, who has had to rely on his spies and other secondhand information.

Hilda mulls it over for a moment and Claude can already see that whatever she’s about to say isn’t good.

“He’s still alive, so I assume you’re planning on using him to secure the allegiance of Faerghus,” she murmurs, perceptive - but then, she’s had to be, and she knows Claude better than anyone. “I think that the loyalists in the Empire are a larger threat. Parading Dimitri around is an insult to injury for them and they’re going to get angry if you give him any sort of power.”

“But if I have the Alliance loyalists and I can get the Faerghus loyalists backing me…”

“Is it worth it?” Hilda asks, contemplative. “Arresting Ferdie and Bernie instead of killing them - that was really good, they’re two of the most beloved nobles in the Empire. I think that’s the only reason we don’t have a larger uprising right now. If you’re going to use someone to secure the people, I’d use one of them.”

It’s the kind of harsh truth that Claude needs, but doesn’t particularly want to hear. It’s true that offering Dimitri power over the Empire, which still has a strong military force, is… perhaps not ideal, but there’s been so much else going on that he’d just assumed he’d figure out how to plan for it when the time came.

“I don’t think they’d be keen on working with me,” he finally says. It would be easier to control someone like Dimitri than either of those two, especially in light of everything he’s done since returning to Fódlan. “Though, I’m drafting a missive to Brigid. Petra was a friend to Edelgard, but Brigid and the Empire - not so much. If I can get a member of the strike force to endorse me…”

“Then you’d still have the issue of what you’re going to do with Dimitri.”

“And who will rule Fódlan.”

“Yes, and that.”

Claude frowns at her and she shrugs, offering him a look that just says _hey, I’m just telling the truth_.

“Chances of the Adrestian prime minister, yourself, and Dimitri all ruling together?”

Hilda stares flatly at him, clearly displeased with Claude suddenly roping her into this. “Dividing Fódlan like before or as a single power structure?”

“The latter.” He tries not to wince as he says it, and it’s Hilda’s turn to laugh this time.

“Zero.”

“The former, then.”

There’s a long pause, but it’s clear that she’s not really thinking about her answer to him. Instead, Hilda is looking at him in a new way, her brows furrowed, like something else is falling into place for her and she can’t quite figure out what to do with it. Under her gaze - both scrutinizing and sympathetic - Claude feels like shrinking back, changing the subject. She’s always read him better than most and with this conversation, he suddenly realizes that he’s been showing too many of his cards.

When Hilda finally speaks, her voice is soft, choosing sympathy over criticism.

“...you really don’t want to kill him, do you?”

Claude looks away, uncomfortable and tries to choose his words carefully, tries not to think about Dimitri’s hair in his hands, the peek of whipping scars trailing up the back of his shirt, the smooth line of his body arched back against him.

He pushes the thought away and instead reaches for the familiar longing for his ideals, his idea of peace and what he’s done already to attain it.

“I won’t let anything stand in my way,” he finally says, more resolute than he feels. When he looks at Hilda again, it’s with narrowed eyes - she knows him and she’s seen him, over the last five years, turn into someone who would do anything for this. He’s had to shed his skin, cast off his childish dreams of kindness and togetherness and become someone who would stop at nothing.

They both have.

“You know that.”

“I do,” she responds, quietly. There’s a long silence between them, and Claude sighs, continues.

“...it’s not something we have to decide today. I just wanted to know your thoughts on it.”

There’s another meeting in an hour, this one with a few nobles who are less inclined to submit to Claude’s new Fódlan. He has to prepare, look up land division treaties, pour over Edelgard’s old policies and agreements, figure out how to uphold her deals to prevent an uprising - there isn’t enough time to figure out who he’s going to leave this country to and how Dimitri is going to factor into anything right this moment.

Hilda knows that too and she nods, looking hesitant, knowing that Claude isn’t going to like what she’s about to say.

“You can’t hide him forever. If you bring him out in a month, they’re going to wonder why you kept him secret for so long. You need to make a decision.”

Claude’s eyes sink shut.

“I know.”

Hilda shakes her head and moves toward him, reaching out to touch his wrist, to get her fingers around it. A show of companionship, reassurance. She understands that this isn’t easy for him - it isn’t easy on her either, but in this, their relationship, they need balance and for that, she has to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear.

“Kill him,” she murmurs softly, “or make him disappear. Faerghus will rally behind him if you let him go. The Empire will rise up against you if he stays. I don’t know what he’s been through but with all his friends dead, with what Hubert did to him… honestly, it will probably be a mercy.”

It’s not an unexpected sentiment and Claude can’t blame her for it. Hilda has seen Claude plan the murder of enough people by now that she knows how he thinks. She knows how inconveniences can be removed. She knows what he did to Lorenz. Her mouth is set in a thin line and she squeezes at his arm, reassuring.

“...I know.” Claude looks at her, offers her a wry smile, and tugs his arm out of her grip. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

Hilda nods quietly, understanding the dismissal when she hears it, and leaves the Claude to his thoughts in the empty room.

_

When he visits Dimitri next, it’s with his familiar dagger up his sleeve and something else, something that he hesitates on and mulls over for far longer than he should. He thinks on Hilda’s words, his own naive aspirations of restoring Dimitri’s power, of how Dimitri doesn’t seem like he’d ever be able to _speak_ again, let alone lead a nation, even with the backing of others who could do all the work for him.

He thinks about what a nightmare all of this is and he thinks about whether or not Ferdinand would just go right back to war with him if he gave him any sort of power. The nobles are starting to make progress in their arrangements and Claude thinks that it could be possible to leave Fódlan in their hands as a strange sort of democracy, rather than a monarchy. Leaving it like the Alliance, with meetings and discussions lead by a single faction - that’s what he’s leaning toward now.

Which leaves the loose end of Dimitri. Which leaves Claude standing in front of his door with the guards on either side, thinking about his dagger, about the small vial in his hand, about Hilda’s very logical, very sound argument.

“He’s doing better, your highness,” the guard tells him, and Claude doesn’t want to hear that, but he forces himself to listen, to close his eyes as he’s reported to. “Hasn’t lashed out since you visited last. We gave him something to cover his eye. The muzzle’s off at mealtimes but as per your orders, it goes back on when they’re done and he’s fine with it. He nodded at Langley this morning - didn’t he, Lang?”

The other guard grins his approval, either forgetting what Dimitri has done to his fellow guards or forgiving him anyway due to the state of him. Claude can relate. “Sure did, right after breakfast.”

The guards chatter a bit more and Claude tunes them out.

He thinks about the poison he’s brought.

It’s colorless, odorless. He’s gone through Hubert’s stash, felt a deep appreciation for Edelgard’s right hand man at the sheer extent of his collection of poisons and potions, though most of them seemed to be meant for causing pain in the most visceral way possible. That isn’t what Claude wants to do here and so he’s selected one from his own collection, one he uses for mercy rather than torture.

He has it now, and he interrupts the guards by stepping forward and putting it in their hands.

“Put this in the next meal.”

The guard - Langley - looks at him for a moment before understanding dawns and the smile slips from his face as he reaches to take it with a solemn nod.

“...yes, your highness.”

It’s a kindness. It’s a gentle sleep that Dimitri will never wake up from, it’s Dimitri never realizing that he’s been betrayed, _again_, that despite five years of torture and finally clawing his way back to humanity at Claude’s request, it’s still too inconvenient to leave him alive. It’s Claude, stripping away who he was before Byleth struck him down and stepping calmly into his new self, the one shaped by a lifetime of rejection followed by the cold steel of a defeat that he never deserved.

This is the way the world works. _It will probably be a mercy_, Hilda had said, and Claude repeats that to himself like a mantra.

Mercy, mercy, mercy.

The guards say nothing, just look at the poison in Langley’s hand, and Claude will leave. He needs to. He has to walk away from this, but - but there was a boy, ten years ago, who seemed untouchable, a man who fought a losing war without Claude’s help, a man who died and came back to life, who is owed… something more than just slipping off into a quiet death, after five years of torment.

He’s owed - not an explanation, Claude can’t give him that, but perhaps, a moment of Claude’s time. Claude owes it to him to look at him, now that he’s made his decision. Claude owes it to him to remember him on his last day.

He steps inside.

Dimitri looks up from where he’s sitting on the bed again and Claude swears that his face brightens when he sees that it’s Claude instead of the guards again. 

As soon as he lays his eyes on him, Claude knows suddenly that coming in here is a mistake.

Dimitri looks even healthier than he had last time, color returning to what small parts of his face are visible, strength coming back into his shoulders, he looks brighter, more stable, even somehow _pleased_ to see him, and his hair -

His hair is still too long, still uneven, and it’s been days since Claude last visited so he knows that the braid that’s in Dimitri’s hair isn’t the one he’d left there. Instead, it’s… it’s sloppy, too loose, with loops of hair sticking out and coming undone partway down. It’s a braid done by an unpracticed hand, or perhaps two of them, chained together like Dimitri’s are.

Claude steps forward. Dimitri is wearing an eyepatch that Claude had instructed his guards to bring to him, just a simple black thing, but on Claude’s approach, Dimitri reaches up toward his face and gingerly removes it, letting the scrap of fabric fall into his lap.

Like he’d asked.

Claude doesn’t know what to say. He approaches Dimitri on the bed, who looks up at him with a quiet acknowledgement, and he thinks about killing him. He slipped poison to the guards already but here, now, he has his dagger in his sleeve and it would be easy with how Dimitri’s chin tilts up when claude reaches for the leather of his muzzle, how he bares his throat without Claude even having to ask for it. It would be easy, with how much Dimitri trusts him, despite Claude having done nothing to earn it.

His mouth feels dry. Claude wets his lips and slides a thumb across the flat of the muzzle, over Dimitri’s cheek.

“...you liked the braid?”

Dimitri nods once and Claude follows the movement with his hand and thinks about leaving now. He could still do it, he thinks - he could still pull himself away and let this happen and move on with his life and what needs to be done. It’s possible. He has a chance.

Then Dimitri presses his cheek into Claude’s hand, nuzzling into his fingers and Claude feels his heart drop out of his chest.

He thought it was possible. He thought he could crush that part of him, the part that takes unnecessary risks out of sentiment, the part that’s too bright-eyed and idealistic for this cruel world, the part of him that lost the war, but when Dimitri reaches his chained hands up to gently touch his fingers into the front of Claude’s shirt, to curl his hands delicately in the lower hem so that he can keep Claude close - he finds himself wavering. His heart gives a disastrous _thud_ and _it would be a mercy_.

Claude closes his eyes and Dimitri is still looking at him, Dimitri doesn’t know what he’s thinking, what he’s been planning on doing - a mercy.

“I said I wouldn’t hurt you,” Claude admits and Dimitri nods quietly, understanding, coherent. “I think I lied.”

There’s no reaction. Claude keeps his eyes closed, runs his fingers through Dimitri’s hair, ruining the braid and thinking about the knife in his sleeve, the back of Dimitri’s neck. He steels himself, forces his voice to harden and grabs Dimitri by the hair, tugging him back and looking him in the eye, as coldly as he can.

“Your family is dead. Your friends are dead. I killed everyone responsible.”

Dimitri looks up at him, confused at first, but pained by the words all the same. How many times has he thought this? How many times has Hubert or the other Imperial guards gleefully told him this? Dimitri’s brows knit together and for the first time, he tries to pull away but Claude keeps him there, still for him, forces him to look at him.

“You have no option of revenge - I took that from you. You have no capacity to rule - Edelgard took that from you. You have _nothing_.”

It’s the truth. Dimitri knows that. Claude knows that. But the way he looks at him, betrayed, hurt - it’s a look that Claude takes in and holds close to his heart. This is what he has to do. This is how he has to conduct his life, his decisions, everything that he does. Sentimentality gets him nowhere. Affection gets him nowhere. Schoolboy crushes on broken men with nothing to live for get him _nowhere_.

“So tell me - tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” Claude says, his voice coming out through gritted teeth, breathier than he means it to be and ten years ago, he’d be horrified at the man who stands before Dimitri now, ten years ago he thinks he might have slid a knife into his own ribs just to stop this. “Tell me what use you can be to me. Because I’m looking at you and I see a liability. I’m looking at you and I see - I see someone who would probably rather die anyway.”

Claude knows that he’s being unfair. Asking Dimitri to beg for his life when Dimitri can’t even speak? When Dimitri can’t even justify his own existence to him?

Dimitri’s eye flutters downward for a moment, staring dully toward Claude’s chest, not really seeing him at all. He seems to consider Claude’s words with a heavy heart and Claude thinks that he should have just given Dimitri this decision on the first day, rather than his pointless ultimatum. He thinks that he should have just asked Dimitri if he’d wanted to die back then, rather than string this out, touch him the way he has, grow attached.

He thinks that even if he kills Dimitri here, he’ll still be thinking of him for years. The way he looks at him like no one else looks at him. The way that Dimitri is maybe the only other person on this planet to know what losing to Edelgard feels like.

But Dimitri has fallen far further than he has. Dimitri has no chance of ever achieving his goal, while Claude is achieving his in blood. Dimitri - Dimitri is moving.

Slowly, he reaches for Claude’s other hand, the one not tangled in his hair. The chains clink together as Dimitri wraps his fingers around Claude’s wrist and slowly, surely, bring his fingers to his throat.

He looks back up at Claude, his eye bright with tears but not letting any of them spill over and Claude can feel the _thump thump thump_ of Dimitri’s pulse in his throat. He feels the… challenge? Is it a challenge? In Dimitri’s gaze and he feels this thing, this ugly and poisonous thing that lies between them, binding them to one another and sinking them both under the weight of it.

It’s the shame. It’s the guilt. It’s the damnable _defeat_ that they suffered, it’s not being good enough, it’s not being strong enough, it’s losing in such a profound way that part of yourself has been cut out and left to rot there on the battlefield.

“I should have joined you,” Claude whispers, his voice trembling, barely audible, and in a flurry of motion he shoves Dimitri back against the bed, gets his knees up to either side of him, pulls his other hand out of his hair and presses it against his throat as well.

Dimitri moves where he’s pushed but doesn’t fight back, simply lets his chin tilt up, his hair haloed around him on the bedcovers and Claude tries to kill that last little piece of himself, that last little piece of Dimitri.

“You. You took Rhea in,” his fingers tighten until he can feel the staccato of breath through Dimitri’s thinned windpipe, “you set your sights on Edelgard,” again, tighter. Claude’s shoulders tremble. “You were the last hope for Fódlan and she never - I was just a _stepping stone_ to get to you!”

Dimitri breathes his last breath as Claude cuts off his airflow, settling his weight fully over him now, leaning into him, listening to the rattle of breath as it pushes itself out of his lungs.

“And I won! Out of all three of us, I was the one - I was - “

He’ll kill him. He’ll kill him and now that he’s killed Edelgard and Byleth, there’ll be no one left to kill. Just peace, just prosperity, just his dream unfurling in front of him like a garden watered in the blood he’s spilled.

Dimitri wants this - or Dimitri doesn’t care enough about this to not want it. Claude needs this for his future, and Claude has killed so many people, one more isn’t going to weigh any heavier on him, even if that one was once a sweet, blond prince who once saw Claude doing research late in the library and asked if he could help.

He remembers that boy and falters, remembers what he could have done, what Dimitri had tried to do, and everything that's caught between them both. He remembers Dimitri laughing at the festivities at Garreg Mach, remembers the lurch in his stomach when he first got the report that Dimitri was dead.

Claude’s forehead rests against Dimitri’s, hunkered over him like this on the bed and it feels so much like defeat when his fingers loosen as Dimitri goes slack. He can feel it now, the _thudthudthudthudthud_ of his heart, faster, hammering up against his pulsepoint, and the chains binding Dimitri’s wrists won’t let him reach his arms around Claude and so he simply grasps onto the front of his shirt again and holds on.

“...I had the biggest crush on you,” Claude finally admits, his voice faraway. It’s meaningless now, but he says it because he doesn’t know what else to say. “But I always thought that you liked someone else. I wonder now, if I was brave enough to tell you… could we have taken her on together?”

He pulls back just slightly, just enough to look Dimitri in the eye. It’s watering, he’s still gasping for breath, but he’s still and quiet and he doesn’t shy away from Claude’s gaze, from his grip, even as Claude lifts a hand to brush a strand of hair out of his face.

Beautiful. Dimitri has always been beautiful.

“Could you have saved me?” Claude asks, soft as he leans in again, “could I have saved you?”

All that’s left is this: Claude’s mouth against the leather of Dimitri’s muzzle, his lips brushing just faintly against the hardened molding of it, where Dimitri’s mouth would be if not for the obstacle in his way.

Dimitri closes his eye and he’s still breathing heavily but he leans up into it, using his grip on Claude’s shirt to tug him down, to hold him over his body, to keep him centered while he… well, Claude doesn’t know, but judging by the movement of his head, his shoulders, the soft sound that escapes from the leather between them both, Claude thinks he’s being kissed back.

It’s cold. It’s impersonal, but it feels more vivid than any kiss Claude could have imagined, because Dimitri is on the other side of it, alive and still breathing, despite Claude’s best efforts to kill that part of both of them that Edelgard so deeply ruined.

When Claude breaks the - kiss? Could it be called a kiss? - he’s the one breathing hard, looking down against Dimitri’s face below his own, realizing just how much they’re touching.

Dimitri’s breathing has finally calmed down now but there’s an unmistakable ring of bruising beginning to take form around his throat and Claude feels guilty but he also feels… cathartic. He tried to kill him but he couldn’t. Tried to bring an end to the person he used to be, but he can still feel his familiar gentle heart pounding against his ribs.

He leans back and Dimitri says nothing, lets go of his shirt when he pulls away. Claude closes his eyes and _thinks_.

Maybe it’s because of his naive childhood crush. Maybe it’s because he can’t fathom doing anything worse to this man who has already suffered enough. Maybe it’s because Dimitri is the only other person who could ever understand the distinct sting carrying the hopes of his people and failing, of living on while they died because of you. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be broken alone.

Either way, Dimitri lives.

Either way, Claude has to think of something to do with him. _Some way to protect him,_ his mind unhelpfully supplies, and he pushes it away. He needs to find a way for Dimitri to coexist with his own goals, there is simply no other option.

He certainly can’t come up with an idea in here, on top of him, pressed against him like a lover might, more intimate than he’s been with anyone in… too long.

Claude pulls back, almost stumbling to reach the floor, and looks toward Dimitri there, his brows furrowed, thoughtful while Dimitri struggles to get himself upright again. Claude can see that he’s thinking too, taking in what had just happened, figuring out where best to go from here. He knows too much now: about Claude, about what he can or can’t do, about how he feels. Dimitri is even more of a liability.

But that only matters if he gets away.

“Will you -” Claude starts, but it sounds too vulnerable, so he clears his throat, tries again as Dimitri collects himself on the bed and looks up toward him.

“You have nothing to live for.”

He’s just stating the truth again, stained now by the knowledge that Claude can’t kill him without killing some part of himself that he thought was already dead. Some part of himself that’s weak, soft, but a part that he realizes that he desperately wants to hang onto, no matter the costs.

Dimitri nods slowly, but his eye is sharp, intelligent. He knows that Claude can’t do it. He knows that Claude kissed him. What he doesn’t know is where that leaves him.

Claude is more than happy to explain.

“So live for me,” he offers, resolute. Dimitri tilts his head to the side, his brows furrowed, clearly not expecting that and Claude continues, explaining: “I know you people of Faerghus are bound by duty, loyalty, but you can’t go back there and I don’t think you want to, anyway. I know that without some kind of purpose, you’ll stay in this room until you wither and die and I don’t want to let that happen. I’ll give that to you - I’ll give you things to do, things that matter, things that are important to me.”

Dimitri hasn’t moved. He’s following, that much is certain, but he clearly thinks that Claude is out of his depth with this. Maybe he is. He doesn’t care.

“When I leave this country, I’ll take you with me. You’ll never have to think about Fódlan again.”

It’s the safest option, he thinks, the only option where Dimitri survives. So he’s a liability, so Claude will have to put in extra precautions - he’s Claude von Riegan, a master tactician, he took over this entire country with minimal losses. He can figure out how to secure a single man.

The offer hangs in the air between them for a beat too long. How could he say no? How could he choose an existence - a meaningless existence, ending in a pointless death - over what Claude is offering him? Any sane man would take him up on it… but then again, is Dimitri a sane man?

Finally, Claude hears the telltale sound of the chains rattling as Dimitri moves to stand, as he slowly makes his way toward Claude, shambling like a dead man. He stops just short of him and looks down, his expression - for all that it’s just a single eye, his brow - unreadable.

Claude realizes suddenly, for the first time, that Dimitri is taller than him.

Not just taller, a good _deal_ taller, and he’s never seen him when he wasn’t sitting or on his knees, he hasn’t done the math in his head, but as he’s forced to look up to him now, he suddenly wonders if he was a fool for thinking that something as flimsy as a knife would keep him safe when confronting this man.

But Dimitri doesn’t attack him. Dimitri doesn’t do anything of the sort - instead, he raises his hands together, as he must due to the chains, and touches his fingers to Claude’s cheek, slides them down to his jaw, to delicately trace the shape of his ear.

It’s all Claude can do to look up at him like this, rooted in place by something he doesn’t want to name, and Dimitri’s fingers slide closer to his throat, closer, closer, and Claude thinks wildly, _he could break my neck_, but he doesn’t cry out, he doesn’t speak, he does nothing as Dimitri presses forward, backs him up one step, two, and he stumbles over his boots until his shoulders are pressed against the wall and Dimitri is there, towering over him, and Claude recognizes a smouldering ember of the fire he’d seen in him once, a long time ago.

“Mm,” Claude hears behind the muzzle, and it sounds like it might be a noise of approval.

Claude feels not entirely unlike he’s staring down a predator. Some kind of large and vicious dog that he knows will snap at him if he shows any weakness at all - so he doesn’t. He watches Dimitri, meets his eye solidly, and keeps his chin up, proud, returning the stare in a way that he hopes will prove daring instead of challenging.

He means this. He’s not lying.

Whatever he does - however he looks - it seems to meet whatever standards Dimitri has because the larger man leans down again, brushing their cheeks together, further, until his face is pressed against Claude’s throat and his hands are at his shirt again and Claude feels the wet press of breath through the nostrils of the muzzle as Dimitri holds him there.

Tentatively, Claude raises his arms around Dimitri’s shoulders to hold him in turn, letting out a soft sigh of relief and rubbing a small circle into his back, feeling the muscle beneath his fingers, pinned between the wall and the equally solid would-be king in front of him and he’s not - he’s not thinking about his fantasies from earlier, not thinking about how he had Dimitri on his back, and he’s certainly not thinking about taking this back to the bed, but…

Dimitri makes another sound, a gutteral thing in the back of his throat and Claude thinks that maybe he’s thinking the same thing because in the next moment, he’s sliding effortlessly down to his knees like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Claude’s mouth goes dry, all thought cleaned out from his head and his shoulders thud back against the wall as he stares down toward Dimitri, who is looking up toward him, even as he presses the flat of his muzzle warmly against his crotch.

It’s just about the most erotic thing he’s ever seen and Claude’s dick gives a traitorous twitch that he’s sure Dimitri can feel, but - no. Not like -

His fingers move to rest against Dimitri’s temple and Claude takes a breath, remembers how to speak.

“This isn’t… you don’t have to do this.”

He swallows thickly, unable to really believe what he’s saying when all of his fantasies are coming to life right in front of him. But it’s important Dimitri knows, it’s important they settle this before they cross lines that can never be uncrossed.

“I’ll keep my word regardless. You don’t owe me - this.”

But Dimitri shakes his head in response, lowering his gaze to his project at hand and pressing his face into Claude’s groin, inhaling him, bringing his shackled wrists up to work at the ties to Claude’s pants and - goddess -

_Damnit_, Claude really wishes that he had the key to Dimitri’s bindings, to any of them, just to take them off because this still feels wrong, but Dimitri gets his pants undone, slips them down over Claude’s hips along with his smallclothes and watches as Claude’s cock comes free of his confines.

Like this, Dimitri can press forward again, touch his cheek to it, press the hard leather of the muzzle against it and he can’t get his mouth on him the way he seems to want to and Claude whimpers at the sight of it, Dimitri on his knees, his mouth locked away, slipping his face along the warmth of his dick, raising his hands to touch him.

He’s not going to last long at all, even if he can’t feel the wetness of Dimitri’s tongue on him, even if all Dimitri can do is press his cheek against his hardness and use his fingers to stroke at him, get a hand under his cock to fondle his balls and Claude presses his hand into Dimitri’s hair, mussing it, ridding it of any resemblance to a braid at all, his hips rolling into the touch like a man starved.

“Dimitri,” he breathes, reverent, sliding his fingers through that soft, blond hair.

In turn, Dimitri redoubles his efforts, looking up at him with a bright, vivid eye as he moves faster, works harder, until Claude pulls at his hair again, like he has so many times now, and he goes still.

“Come up here.”

As much as the sight of Dimitri on his knees is _incredibly_ arousing, Claude wants him up against him again, wants to feel the bulk of him, wants to maybe touch him in return and feel Dimitri’s cock straining in his hand.

Dimitri nods and moves, letting go of Claude to rise to his feet next to him, to tower over Claude in that imposing way of his. In order to get some equilibrium back, Claude turns them, presses Dimitri’s back against the wall instead, and reaches his hands down for his waistband, sure of himself, ironclad.

“I’ve wanted,” he starts, then decides that he’d rather not admit too much, and reaches down to touch Dimitri’s cock for the first time, skin on skin. It makes Dimitri inhale sharply through the leather of his mask and Claude smirks in satisfaction, getting his fingers around him proper and pressing him firmly against the wall.

“I want you. I want to have you with me, by my side, and we won't - we won't let anything happen again, I'll be better with you -”

As he speaks, Dimitri lifts his arms up to put around Claude’s shoulders, the chains linking his wrists creating a warm circle that Claude longs to burrow in. His shirt has messily fallen open in all the commotion and Claude can see the edges of a tattoo etched into the hollow of his shoulder, an ugly looking spiral that he recognizes from Hubert’s book.

But that’s for later, that’s not - it’s hard to think about that when Claude presses forward and manages to fit their cocks together, pressed warmly in his hand and he and Dimitri both gasp at the feeling of it, aching hard and velvet smooth. Dimitri’s head knocks back against the wall as he moans out, muffled from behind the muzzle and it’s the sweetest thing, the sweetest and most divine noise, and Claude chases that with a sharp bite against his throat, claiming him, his hips jerking, humping savagely against him, forcing him back against the wall.

The slick slide of them is intoxicating in just how _real_ it feels, warm and wet and tight together in the confines of Claude's fist. Dimitri fucks up against it helplessly and Claude follows, gasping wetly into his throat, tightening his grip as much as he can, twisting his wrist and watching as Dimitri comes undone.

He sees it the moment Dimitri comes, barely hears his voice behind the muzzle but suddenly his fingers are wet, there’s dampness on his stomach and he can _smell_ it and Dimitri spasms against him, keening high in his throat, a sound that Claude feels in his teeth more than hears.

Claude feels Dimitri tremble against him in the afterglow and he just needs - just a little more - he lets go of Dimitri’s softening cock to touch himself now, his fist wet with Dimitri’s spend, and he licks over the bruise he’s left on Dimitri’s throat, working himself, striving, and Dimitri just holds him tight and there’s nothing he can think of that feels better than that final moment when he crests that precipice and comes harder than he has in recent memory, adding to the mess on their stomachs, on his fingers.

Then it's quiet, save for the sounds of their breathing.

Claude is still breathing into Dimitri’s throat, and Dimitri lowers his head a little to press his chin against Claude’s scalp, keeping his arms around him, keeping him encircled, safe, warm, and - slightly sticky, a little uncomfortable with it.

“Dimitri…”

He starts, but doesn’t know how to finish. Claude slowly manages to untangle himself from Dimitri’s arms, leaving the taller man leaning against the wall, looking the very picture of indecency, with the leather on his face, the bruises on his throat, his pants undone, stomach covered in both of their seed.

Claude feels a tinge of regret and takes his hand to guide him back to the bed before going for the wardrobe, taking whatever scrap of garment he can find and using it to gingerly clean both of them off, to tuck them back into their trousers and gingerly sets it with the rest of the washing.

He needs to leave. He should have left before this, but Dimitri was - and Dimitri still is - looking at him like _that_, the way that leaves Claude helpless but to lean in and press a small kiss against his forehead, to take his hair into hand again and try to redo the braid for him, to get him as settled as he possibly can, despite all the ways he’s been broken, all the ways Claude has almost broken him.

“I’d like to do that again,” he admits, “when you’re out of these bindings. When you can share my bed.”

Dimitri nods, which tugs some of the hair out of his grip and Claude smiles, before reaching to catch his fingers around it again.

“We can’t yet. But when we leave - well…”

Claude trails off, contemplative as he finishes the braid. He remembers his earlier thoughts of dying Dimitri’s hair and thinks - black will definitely suit him better than auburn, and can’t help but to smile to himself while he ties it loosely back, making a mental note to pick up the vial he’d left with the guards on the way out.

“How do you feel about Almyra?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!
> 
> I had originally intended to write this in three chapters, then upped the chapter count to four due to some of my planning... but I'm reducing it back to three, simply because the third chapter was a monster and pretty much closes this part of Claude's arc with Dimitri. I _will_ write more for this fic, at least one more chapter, but that will be more of an epilogue than a direct continuation (barring a scene or two that didn't make it into this chapter) and unfortunately due to my current projects, that will likely come at a later time.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is what happens when I think "I like the idea of Dimitri in a muzzle! Let's write a short oneshot of that" and then explode into thousands of words of exposition and buildup.
> 
> Hit me up on twitter! [@unraelated](https://twitter.com/unraelated)


End file.
